Fictional Reality
by Enabeans
Summary: Mars era clones. First Christmas, and what it means to them. Written as a Christmas gift. COMPLETE.
1. Letters to Santa

_A/N: Written as a Christmas gift for my best friend. May this next year bring you many Mars Carrots and bollocks :3_

**Fictional Reality**

**Chapter One - Letters to Santa**

The first two successful Red Mars clones - the peak of achievement after the prototype had proven herself as capable - were carefully monitored as they grew. Only the correct diet was allowed, and even their small amounts of leisure time were regulated carefully. They were only built for one purpose, and so all 'play' activities were actually war games designed to build a grounding in tactics and strategy. All their books were factual accounts of great leaders, or sometimes the bible if they had done something worthy of reward. They were not allowed frivolous games, storybooks, or even a basic knowledge of what most children took for granted.

So when Cain came into possession of his first contraband item, he guarded it fiercely. It was a small and battered book titled _'Christmas Tales for Children'. _He had found it after he had finished his programming lesson in the library on the colony that was to be his new home, browsing the other books and coming across this brightly coloured treasure. Perhaps at ten years old it was supposed to be a book for younger children, and Cain had well surpassed that reading level... but it fascinated him totally and completely.

He spent hours studying it, going over each line of each story until he was absolutely sure of his facts. Only then did he go to his brother with his amazing discovery...

"...presents from a fat man?" Abel looked up at his brother as though wondering if he'd finally cracked. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Don't swear, Abel. You know Lilith doesn't like it."

The small silver-haired boy just scowled in response, folding his arms over his chest and doing a credible impersonation of someone who didn't care. Small for their age at ten, Abel didn't quite give off the same air of innocence as his blonde doppelgänger. Almost always with a bruise of some kind marring pale skin, his face was set in a perpetual frown and his language was shocking for a man almost three times his age. The main thing that drew them together as identical were their eyes - identical pairs of winter blue that seemed already too old and a little too jaded from experiences no child should have to suffer.

Except now Cain's were sparkling in suppressed excitement, carefully drawing out his book and turning to an illustration of Santa Claus. Finger almost reverently touching the page atop the legendary figure's red-coated person and smiling.

"See. He's right here, coming down a chimney. They say he's called Santa Claus, and he delivers presents on one night each year to all the children of the world who have been good."

"Give me that." Abel said with an exasperated sigh and grabbed the book, flicking through its pages one at a time. He was about to scoff about the probable validity of these tales, and laugh at Cain for being such a gullible idiot, when he saw how many notations were written in his brother's handwriting in the margins. Page after page carefully annotated and catalogued, as though Cain actually believed this would happen. For some reason, Abel kept his silence and just pushed the book back into his brother's hands.

"We've only got two months until Christmas." Cain noted with barely concealed excitement, taking Abel's silence to mean he was convinced. "The first thing we have to do is write letters and send them to the North Pole."

Were they really doing this? Abel wondered vaguely if Cain wasn't quite the genius everyone said he was, but accepted his notepad and pen with only the smallest of grumbles. Tapping his pen on the page, all he could think about was how stupid this was. It was obviously a made up story to make Terran children behave, a stupid gimmick applied to the holiday to make people cough up more money for each other in a desperate bid to fuel consumerism. So why was he sitting here trying to think of something to write to this fictional man in the North Pole? It certainly couldn't be because his idiot other half had swallowed the story completely, and it absolutely had nothing to do with the naked hope and joy in Cain's eyes that there was something to look forward to. No. Not at all.

...Sigh.

Leaning over slightly to peer at Cain's paper, he saw lines and lines of excited scribbling asking for books and toys for all his family, for a day outside in the rain on Earth, and for a weekend to be free with the people he loved. Something hooded and filled with longing flashed into Abel's eyes as he turned back to his own sheet of paper and firmly put pen to paper, hiding the embarrassing letter from prying eyes right to the moment he sealed it in an envelope.

_"Santa._

_Be real for my brother. Please._

_ Abel."_


	2. Trees

**Fictional Reality**

**Chapter Two - Trees**

Something magical was happening on the colony, something that had seemed to infect almost every person there. It was December first and a Christmas tree was going up in the main atrium of the UNASF building. It was not something that had been celebrated in the laboratories on Earth, as all the staff had homes to go to where they kept their holiday frivolities separate from work. But for the first time ever, the colony was inhabited at Christmas and the celebrations had infected everywhere.

The tree was magnificent. Almost thirty feet tall with wide sweeping branches that were laden with decorations, and the few children who had come to live with parents who worked on the new colony stood in awe to stare at the flickering multicoloured lights and bright star right on the topmost branch. Excited discussions could be heard as workers told one another about their personal plans for the day, and the decorations they had put up in their own living quarters.

It wasn't only the workers who were starting to anticipate the coming holidays happily, there was a certain small blonde clone that was possibly the most eager of all. For the last month he had been making his preparations diligently, following his own exacting standards with a military precision that hadn't been meant for such useless endeavours.

Faced with the terrible prospect of being unable to afford presents for his family, as all their meals and amenities were provided for them and so they were given no stipend of their own, he had mused on how to make money quickly for a few days before striking the answer. There were always greedy kids willing to buy extra meal tickets from anyone who didn't need theirs, and so Cain had been sustaining himself on one meal a day to sell all his other meal allowance tickets for present money. The tree was another tangled problem, but he had to have one... The book was very clear on that, Father Christmas only ever left presents under a tree and so it was of utmost importance he obtained one.

Eventually he had found a sickly brown tree in the waste disposal units, along with a box of broken ornaments. It had taken a while to reason with his conscience that it wasn't stealing, especially as they had already been thrown away, but that evening had found Cain proudly decorating his stunted tree in his quarters and laughing whenever the pine needles dropped off and got stuck in his hair.

It was almost time...

* * *

Abel's scowl deepened each time he passed that odious display in the atrium, loathing the very idea of this holiday the more he learned about it. A time for the rich to stuff themselves with unwanted gifts and gorge on unnecessary amounts of food, while the poor still suffered and were expected to be thankful with a delivery of mince pies to make one day hunger free when the next and the next would still be ridden with starvation.

This was the problem with Terrans. They only looked into pleasing their own carnal desires, never once thinking that it might be more beneficial to use this money for other things. No, they were greedy and corporate and... a disease. They killed one another without remorse, raped and plundered and extorted without guilt. Then perhaps the worse was this... when they tried to gloss over it all with gaudy lights and meaningless phrases about 'goodwill to all men'.

He hadn't spoken with Cain about his ideas for Christmas since that afternoon writing letters, and he fervently hoped his brother had given up all that for the nonsense it was. He seemed to be the same as usual, coasting through lessons easily and making friends from his classmates that he trusted at once, and Abel knew would stab him in the back the first chance they got.

Growling as he passed yet another set of security guards discussing the perils of Christmas shopping in the new colony mall district, he dug his hands deeper into his pockets and mentally ticked off the time until the time they would burn that wretched tree when this was all done.

It was almost time...


	3. Christmas Day

**Fictional Reality**

**Chapter Three - Christmas Day**

That night Cain lay down in his bed with his heart thumping almost unbearably fast in his chest, excitement making him tense with anticipation and unable to sleep. He had enjoyed precious few truly child-like moments in his short life and, where Abel had been tempered with bitterness, he had refused to let his hope die. He knew they were the same as the humans, that they were really just people and all the scientists needed was to be given proof to realize that.

This was his proof. Not just for himself, but for Abel, Lilith and Seth as well.

When the rest of the colony saw their presents left by Santa Claus, they couldn't fail to see the clones treated as equals in that respect. Normal like everyone else, and he was sure at least he would get a visit. He liked to believe Father Christmas would see past Abel's exterior to the glimpses of goodness beneath, but even if he had made the naughty list then it was sure Cain had made the nice one.

Eyes fixed on the almost bare branches of his tree in the corner, wondering what present would be underneath it when he woke up, he finally drifted into a contented sleep.

It seemed barely seconds later that he was waking, jolting upright and out of bed before his eyes were properly open, dropping to his knees beside his tree and staring with a happy smile at... nothing. The same empty space that had been there before he went to sleep, the same bare floor covered in the last of the brown and dead needles that had dropped in the night.

Cain's smile slowly slid away into confusion, ducking lower to crawl right underneath just in case he had missed something. But there was nothing - no gift, no card - and he was finally forced to concede that he wasn't going to find anything no matter how hard he looked. Had he done something wrong to earn a place on the naughty list? His mind began to race frantically back through the year to all misdeeds, both real and perceived, unable to find anything heinous enough to warrant not even the lump of coal given to bad children.

A knock at his door shook him from his reverie and hope bloomed fiercely in his chest again. Of course! He had locked his door as always, and perhaps Santa Claus hadn't been able to get past the security measures on the door once he had found no fireplace to enter through. That meant Cain's presents must be under the giant tree in the lobby. That had to be the explanation, and Cain was on his feet and barrelling right out of the door and down the corridor without even bothering to change his pyjamas or do more than yell an excited 'Merry Christmas' at the bemused Abel who had been the one knocking. Staring after his brother with a sense of foreboding, Abel peeked his head inside Cain's room and blanched when he saw the pitiful tree and its broken decorations.

Idiot.

_Idiot._

Why did Cain always do this? Why did he have to be so trusting? It always ended in disaster, and Abel had to be the one to break the fall. But he couldn't this time, he was too late. Ice formed in the pit of his stomach, followed by a deep anger that it had to be this way. Closing and locking the door behind him, Abel took off running after his brother, already knowing where his destination would have been.

The scene at the tree was festive and bright, people gathered in a crowd to see various presents be handed out and wish one another the best on the holiday morning. Shouts of excitement from the children mingled with laughter from the adults and the occasional raised voice; people already stank of excess, of gluttony and self-important smugness, and Abel wanted to destroy them all for it. To pop their bubble of happiness and show them how futile it really was...

Cain was standing on the fringes of the children, looking almost blankly at the empty space under the tree as the last present was handed away to someone else. A murmuring began among those closest to him, laughter as people realized one of the clones had expected a gift... whoever heard of giving tools a present? One of the other children turned to Cain with a look of scornful confusion and asked what he was doing there.

"I've come to get my gift from Father Christmas." He replied stupidly, the words sounding foreign with a slight break to them.

"Santa Claus doesn't come for monsters."

Monster..? His chest ached with an almost visceral pain with that word, characteristic smile completely absent from his face for once as rare tears formed in his eyes. He had been so sure this was his turn to be normal, and yet... Perhaps they really were just tools, just animals for the use of their human masters? It hurt so completely he didn't even hear the first Terran fall... Abel coming up behind the girl that had spoken those words and smashing his fist through her gift wrapped box to pull out the playhouse inside and smash it over her head.

The silence was deafening as she crumpled to the floor, and the scene was frozen for a long moment before alarms started blaring and people tried to grab hold of Abel to restrain him. Fists and feet were flying all over the place, as Abel seemed to go mad. A red mist of possessive anger dominating his vision, utter fury at the entire world for once more breaking a piece of his precious little family. He wouldn't be stopped, wreaking havoc with a single minded bloody determination. A quick kick to the left shattered a man's shin, and when he went down his head could be grabbed to drag and block another punch.

By the time it was over, Abel had sustained a black eye and a fractured rib, dragged off screaming and writhing to solitary confinement as Cain stood in the middle of a sea of fallen Terrans.

Slowly, the small blonde haired boy in his regulation pyjamas left the scene of carnage and padded barefoot to the solitary cells, looking in at the white walled room where Abel was once more huddled in the corner. Pressing his hand to the glass, he spoke quietly.

"...You shouldn't have done that."

A silver head snapped up as soon as Cain spoke, scrambling to his feet and rushing to almost slam his palm against his brother's with the cool glass between them. He was still angry, furious, almost feral with a need to punish those who had made his twin feel this way. Yet it masked a deeper and more abiding sadness, a breaking of a small hope he hadn't even realized he had been harbouring. Eyes blazing with an intensity that seemed almost frightening on so small a child, he stared at his older brother and shook his head.

"We don't need their Christmas. We don't need _them._ We have each other, that's all we'll ever need."

Cain didn't reply, his silence reverberating between them as for the first time he failed to rebuke him. Soft admonishments that usually came so easily were stilled for the moment, and Abel's lips quirked humourlessly upwards as his fingers curled slightly against the glass. Perhaps if this holiday had shown Cain a little of the truth about the Terrans and opened his eyes from being so blindly trusting, then it wasn't such a waste after all.

One day it wouldn't be this way. One day they would all be free.

Abel would make sure of it.


End file.
